Among the many activities undertaken when a patient visits an ophthalmologist, optometrist, or optician for spectacles is the selection of frames and lens styles. Most patients appreciate the importance of considering the aesthetic appearance of the proposed frames in connection with the patient's face, but few patients appreciate that the overall aesthetic presentation involves not only the frames themselves but also the manner in which the proposed lenses will affect the part of the body seen through the lens by others. The time-honored process by which a patient selects a frame is to try on dozens or hundreds of frames by physical placement of the frames on the face. This is time-consuming, of course, and requires that the frames be physically present and available. It generally takes place in front of a conventional flat mirror, a consequence of which is that the patient sees an image that is the left-to-right reverse of what everyone else sees.
It is thus desired to have a computer system that would permit trying on of frames without the requirement of physical presence of the frames and that would streamline the trying-on of many proposed frames, and which permits the patient to see an image that is not reversed as a mirror image would be.
The selection of frames and lenses is also driven by lifestyle issues, such as the hobbies and activities enjoyed by the patient, whether there will be a considerable amount of night driving, the shape of the patient's face, and hairstyles worn by the patient. It is thus desired to have a computer system that would receive such information from the patient; the system would desirably take the information into account when preparing a list or queue of candidate frame and lens styles to be shown to the patient.
Those familiar with computer systems will appreciate that many systems have been proposed to assist customers in viewing or "trying on" consumer goods and the like, having in common with the present system the use of a camera to capture an image of the customer and the user of a display for the customer. Proposed systems have been directed to customers trying on clothing, trying out hairstyles, and simulating the effects of cosmetic surgery. For a variety of reasons only some of which are technical in nature, most such systems have not been commercially successful. In any event, no such systems known to applicant have addressed the many problems that are peculiar to the fitting of spectacles.
A most striking difficulty with trying on spectacles (as distinguished, for example, from trying on clothing or a hair style) is that by definition when the proposed new frame is on the patient's face, the patient's old spectacles are not. The patient cannot see clearly because no corrective lenses are in the optical path when viewing oneself in a mirror.
Other difficulties also present themselves when one is trying on spectacles. The mere placement of empty frames (frames lacking lenses) on the face gives little or no clue to the patient as to how the proposed prescription lenses will change how the patient appears to others. Depending on the prescription, and as will be described further below, the lenses may magnify the eyes or make them appear smaller; the line of the face visible through the lenses is also affected. Yet another consequence of the choice of a particular frame is that it may have a lens area larger or smaller than that of another frame. For those with very strong prescriptions it is sometimes noted after the prescription has been filled that if a frame with large lenses was selected, the distortions from the strong lenses are prominent. Trying on empty frames does not readily permit the patient to assess this consequence. But nothing in prior art systems known to applicant addresses, let alone solves, these difficulties.
It is thus desirable to provide a system for trying on spectacles that provides an image for the patient that portrays with some fidelity the appearance that will be presented if the proposed frames and proposed lenses were to be manufactured and placed on the face, it is desirable that the portrayal take into account the lens area, the spherical correction of the lenses, and, where astigmatic correction will be provided, the effects of that correction.
For most opticians the ordering, stocking, and reordering of lenses and frames is a purely manual, and thus profoundly inefficient, process. It is thus desired to have a computer system which, after a patient and practitioner have agreed on a frame and lenses, would automatically order the items if not already in stock or reorder them otherwise. It is also desired to have a computer system that would automatically prepare insurance claim forms for those patients who are eligible for reimbursement.